Sketch of the Geology of Northern Russia. 23 
At the foot of the Ural Mountains a broad tract of red-marl, salt 
and gypsum, follows the course.of the Kama, and probably is con- 
nected with the salt district of Vologda in the south. The alabaster 
grottos of Perm, in this neighborhod, are said to exceed that of Bar- 
nacouva. On both sides of this salt country, is an immense tract 
of copper sand, which borders the south west sides of the Ural 
Mountains. It is of a dull reddish green, and contains fossil wood, 
“ resembling the fossil vegetables of the English coal formations,” 
A salt district, full of lakes, occurs at the south east corner of the 
Urals, connecting Siberia with European Russia and the steppe of 
the Kirghis. eae 
Secondary rocks extend across the whole country of southern 
Russia as far south as the primitive steppe. Coal has been found 
near Toula, but cannot be obtained on account of the quicksands 
beneath it. 
STEPPES. 
Steppe denotes a tract of waste country destitute of forests. It 
may be desert, or covered with herbage, like the pampas and prairies 
of South and North America. In Russia, a variety of tracts are 
denominated steppes, as the high, the low, the salt, the sandy, the 
stony, the icy, and other steppes, differing, each from the other, in 
every feature except the absence of wood. 
The primitive steppe reaches S. S. E. from the upper part of the 
Bug to the Birda, crosses the Dneiper, and passing south terminates 
near the Black Sea. The rocks in this tract are granite with garnets 
disseminated, running at times into trap or sienite. A fine earthy 
felspar occurs near Gallicia, fit for making porcelam. ze 
Calcareous steppe—A series of calcareous rocks occurs on the 
margin of the primitive steppe, by the line of the Dneister and the 
shores of the Black Sea. Limestone containing shells and large 
grained oolites, occupies large tracts between the Bug and the Dnie- 
per. Bitumen appears at the sea of Asoph, and at the end of the 
Caucasian chain. Secondary limestone forms a high intermediate 
steppe, around the northern edge of Caucasus. The bituminous 
formation, in a ridge of argillaceous shale, composes the level coun; 
wry of Shirvan: the hills of Shirvan and Daghestan are of shelly 
limestone. Bitumen again appears in the Isle of Naphtha, on the 
eastern shores of the Caspian. 
